The present invention relates to high speed buffer assemblies utilized for large polished floor surfaces, such as those found in super markets and other retail establishments.
Large polished floor surfaces are the standard for the modern retail environment. For both appearance and cleanliness, these surfaces are waxed and buffed. In the modern store environment, relatively large (from one-half to three feet in diameter), high speed buffer assemblies are utilized.
The standard construction of these buffer assemblies is relatively straightforward. They usually include a chassis mounted over a set of wheels, the chassis carrying a motor for driving a disc shaped buffer pad. The buffer pads depend from the chassis for polishing the floor. A hood is mounted to the chassis and depends over the high speed rotating buffer pad when polishing a surface. This hood encircles the buffer pad and serves to prevent the rotating buffer pad from coming in contact with anything above or to the side of the buffer pad. Use of these buffer assemblies, where the floors are first swept and/or mopped, and thereafter waxed and buffed, results in a clean and inviting floor in a store or room.
Unfortunately, such buffing is far from dust free. The large buffing pads, rotating in the order of 2,000 revolutions per minute, dislodge dust from the polishing surface during operation. If not contained, this dust is expelled out from under the hood edges at the sides of the rotating buffer pad where it escapes the hood. Such dust dislodgment and escape is especially aggravated when the buffing pad, during polishing, comes in contact with irregularities in the surface being polished, such as a seam in the flooring.
Further, the dust that dislodges and escapes is particularly unpleasant. Typically, it is of extremely small particle size—slightly larger than one micron—and when escaping is centrifugally thrown outward of the buffer during the high speed buffing operation.
Left uncontained, this dust dislodgment and escape represents a serious problem. Dust from buffing which is thrown outward at high speed, billows upwardly from the buffing site, and settles everywhere, including high surfaces that are relatively removed from the floor surface being polished. Further, and while the dust is airborne, it is often near the nose and mouth of workers operating the buffer apparatus. Consequently, it can constitutes a health hazard due to the possibility of inhalation.
Attempts to solve this problem have included depending skirts to confine dust flow to within the hood suspended over and around the rotating buffer. While these skirts enhance confinement of the dust, they still allow some dust to escape from the buffer assembly. Many buffer assemblies combine the buffer pad with a vacuum dust evacuator. Such evacuators either rely on air entrained by the rotating buffer and have independently powered vacuum apparatus to capture the dust by venting air from under the protective hood to collection bags.
Further, the vacuum only systems which merely communicate to the hood are not able to draw sufficient vacuum; the rotating air entrained by the high speed rotating buffer simply bypasses the vacuum inlet given its configuration. In the past, attempts to allow the rotating buffer to supply the total dust evacuation action were insufficient; dust was still broadcast at the periphery of the buffing pad, out from under the hood or skirt. The present invention improves upon the systems of the past and is able to supply the total dust evacuation action by the rotating buffer given the configuration of the features disclosed herein.